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> Without the ability to make some sort of estimate you cannot assess whether the work is likely to be worth the investment. In case of a product, estimating t
by koonsolo 12y ago
> Without the ability to make some sort of estimate you cannot assess whether the work is likely to be worth the investment.
In case of a product, estimating the development time will be the least of your problems. How do you estimate the revenue of a new feature? Your estimate can easily be off with a factor or 10 or even 100. So in such a case, even with perfect implementation estimates, it's impossible to calculate the profitability of a feature.
- prof_hobart 12y agoYes - it's impossible to reliably and accurately estimate (which is why it's an estimate). But you've got to have some form of figure, both of cost and revenue - even if it's just back of a beermat guesswork based on a vague hunch - to make any form of sensible trade-off judgement. I do a fair amount of work around business cases for new projects, and simply forcing the proposer to go through an exercise of answering "how do you think this project will increase revenue/reduce costs/whatever, and by how much?" helps weed out ideas that don't really have legs or haven't been properly thought through, as does having a first stab at "What's involved in delivering this? Is this a 2 week project or a 6 month one?"